AI in India is booming. From BharatGen—India’s answer to ChatGPT—to agriculture bots like KissanAI and Dhenu, explore how homegrown innovation is reshaping everything from language to farming. AI in India is no longer a buzzword—it’s a transformative force. What began with global imports like ChatGPT and Bard has now evolved into a homegrown tech surge, with local models like BharatGen, KissanAI, and Dhenu leading the charge.
From powering small farms in Uttar Pradesh to building vernacular LLMs in Bengaluru, India is not just consuming AI—it’s creating it. The country’s AI sector is expected to add $500 billion to the GDP by 2025, and we’re only scratching the surface.
Let’s explore the rising ecosystem of AI in India, the innovators driving it, and how tools like BharatGen and agriculture bots are changing the face of governance, farming, and knowledge access.
🇮🇳 What Is BharatGen? India’s First Truly Indian LLM
At the heart of the Indian AI revolution is BharatGen, a family of Large Language Models (LLMs) trained on Indian languages, context, and culture.
🔍 Why BharatGen Matters:
- Multilingual power: Supports 22 Indian languages, including Tamil, Bhojpuri, Marathi, and Urdu
- Cultural fluency: Responds with context-aware, localized content
- Indigenous training data: Built with vernacular internet text, government resources, and Indic knowledge
“BharatGen is not a competitor to ChatGPT—it’s a complement, solving for India’s linguistic and infrastructural uniqueness,” says Prashant Rajendran, an AI lead at EkStep Foundation, one of the backers of the model.
BharatGen has been deployed in:
- State-run school chatbots for regional student support
- Government citizen portals for complaint registration in native languages
- Legal document summarizers for Hindi courts
🔗 More on BharatGen via TechCrunch
🌾 AI in Indian Agriculture: Meet KissanAI, Dhenu, and More
If BharatGen is the brain, India’s agriculture bots are the hands. These tools are quietly powering a silent AI revolution in India’s farmlands.
🤖 What Is KissanAI?
Developed by agri-startup SatSure, KissanAI is a natural-language interface where farmers can ask questions in local dialects and receive:
- Weather forecasts
- Fertilizer advice
- Crop cycle management
- Government scheme eligibility
It’s available via IVR, WhatsApp, and feature phone support—bringing AI to even offline villages.
“We’ve reached over 2 million farmers in 12 languages. It’s about making data accessible, not just digital,” says SatSure CEO Abhishek Raju.
🐄 Say Hello to Dhenu: India’s Cow Care Bot
Dhenu is a GPT-like bot focused entirely on livestock health. Created by agritech group Krishitantra, it assists dairy farmers with:
- Disease diagnosis via image upload
- Feed scheduling
- Breed selection for climate zones
Used widely in Karnataka and Maharashtra, it’s being piloted by Amul for supply chain optimization.
🔗 See Dhenu on AgritechHub India
📊 The Numbers Behind India’s AI Boom
According to NASSCOM’s 2025 report, AI adoption is being driven by:
- 💼 30%+ rise in AI job postings YoY
- 📉 40% cost savings in automated sectors like logistics and call centers
- 📈 50M+ farmers projected to access AI tools by 2026
Meanwhile, India’s AI research output now ranks #3 globally, just behind the US and China.
🧠 What Makes Indian AI Different?
1. 🌐 Language Complexity
India is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world. Building AI that speaks Hindi is one thing—supporting Chhattisgarhi or Maithili is another.
That’s where BharatGPT, IndicBERT, and Sanchay AI come in—training on Indian corpora to build models that understand nuance and sentiment in vernacular tongues.
2. 🚜 Rural-First Design
Most Western AI tools assume high-speed internet and smartphone literacy. Indian AI, however, is being designed for:
- Offline access
- Low-data usage
- IVR-based interfaces
This rural-first philosophy is enabling last-mile inclusion like never before.
3. 🛡️ Sovereignty & Ethics
India is emphasizing data privacy and AI sovereignty with efforts like:
- IndiaAI mission under MeitY
- Draft National AI Policy 2025
- Public-private open models like Sarvam AI
External link: Explore IndiaAI initiatives from MeitY
🌍 India’s Global AI Ambitions
India is not just solving for itself. With its multilingual AI models, India is becoming a template for the Global South, especially in:
- Africa
- Southeast Asia
- Latin America
“BharatGen is a case study in how to build AI for pluralistic societies. It’s not just India’s moment—it’s the Global South’s,” says Ananya Srivastava, senior policy analyst at Observer Research Foundation.
🧠 Use Cases You Haven’t Heard About
🧾 PanchayatGPT
Launched in Bihar and Odisha, this chatbot explains government schemes in local dialects to rural citizens.
💊 AYUSHBot
A model trained on traditional Indian systems like Ayurveda and Siddha, offering personalized health guidance under regulatory oversight.
📚 NEP AI Tutor
An initiative under India’s National Education Policy to give free tutoring to students in tribal belts using AI voice assistants.
🧩 Challenges Ahead
Despite its rapid growth, AI in India faces major roadblocks:
- Bias in training data (urban-dominant content)
- Limited GPUs for LLM training
- Digital literacy gaps, especially among women
- Lack of robust regulation around synthetic media
But efforts are underway to fix these:
- The AI Foundational Model Stack by Bhashini Project
- Open compute infrastructure under IndiaAI
- Skilling missions through Digital India and Skill India
🌐 Internal & External Links:
- 🔗 India’s Digital Public Goods Revolution — NetZeroPlanet.org
- 🔗 AI and the Global South: Observer Research Foundation
- 🔗 NetZero India
🧠 Final Thoughts: Why AI in India Is the World’s Most Exciting AI Story
The next billion users will not speak English. They may not have iPhones. But they will use AI—and India is building it for them.
From BharatGen’s linguistic range to KissanAI’s boots-on-the-ground farming support, the Indian AI story isn’t just about innovation—it’s about inclusion.
So while Silicon Valley may dominate the headlines, it’s villages in Rajasthan and fields in Tamil Nadu where the real AI transformation is taking place.
And it’s only just begun.
